


Achromatic

by luna65



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Murder Husbands, multiverse musings, post-S3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 09:05:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4954507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna65/pseuds/luna65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere between unyielding absolutes there lies frail understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Achromatic

**Author's Note:**

> Included in the would-be canon of Hannibal and Will in South America.

"Good in our experience is continuous with, or is only another aspect of, Evil."  
-Charles Fort, _The Book of the Damned_

 

"Imagine a world where there is only light. How would we experience the respite of darkness?"

 

Will didn't shy away from touching. He liked to say he was _touched_ , the layers of meaning pleasing his wry sense of humor. It was the emphasis of touch he was eager to pay attention to: the weight, the duration, the motion.

Everything in his world, in his mind, in _this life_ , had been touched by Hannibal. Will's personal autonomy was perhaps the least of it. When there was no one else to observe he did not dwell upon touching or being touched. But when he had occasion to watch others - and had argued it was indeed necessary to do so, to remember how to appear human - then he craved the acknowledgement of contact.

In those moments he could hear Bedelia... _the touch of others makes us who we are_.

Sometimes he felt like all the snails he had crushed in the cellar of the estate - that underworld - where he had created the imago no one would ever behold. Was he his highest self, the rock snail whose shell was ground up to make Tyrian purple, the color of royalty? Or merely meat for some hungry predator, having devoured those hapless to him in the food chain.

_It goes round and round, this pursuit._

Sometimes he held himself very still and thought if only he could do so, perfectly, he would forget about time altogether, and all of the things which _might_ happen, _had_ happened, _did_ happen, would be unknown and only potential. Not history, not regret.

 

The dreams he used to dream. he now knew they were about love, and his own ambivalence, not being able to recognize what that type of scrutiny truly meant. The one who stares and stares and stares into you, seeking transformation.

 

Hannibal sketched The Lovers of the Thoth Tarot. And the Red Queen had Will's face.

"Aren't they supposed to be the same person, one only a negative image of the other?" Will asked.

"No, it is not merely light and shadow, black and white, it is all and none. It is balance and it is union. 'You scattered the dark mist which lay before your eyes.'" Hannibal quoted.

"You have no Great Work. You do not create life, you take it."

"There is only transformation. Surely you can understand that now."

"I am not emerging from your Orphic Egg."

"No, but we are on a journey to our highest selves, as always. We will engage in Art, you and I. The white and red shall merge and become one."

"I never managed to extract you from myself. Surely _you_ can understand that now," Will said, his echo containing more than a hint of accusation.

"Only Love can lead to Art."

Will could not argue that point, what he believed of love was in line with Hannibal's philosophy, even as he marveled at the ruthless ways in which Hannibal expressed love, made love a grand gesture of penetration in all ways...knowledge, power, intimacy, connection.

 

Will often wondered what Hannibal had done to him during the time he could not recall, though the scars were there - the aftermath of their first quest. And now, home from the hunt, before the hearth, he understood why hunters treasured their sanctuaries, because one never knew when nature, red in tooth and claw, would reclaim its savagery. What alchemy had been worked upon him, their union - in his fevered hallucinogenic imagination - whirled and swirled and blurred and merged and there was no black or white, but no gray either.

They were their own shade of understanding.

 

Rare was the night he might come home bloody - Hannibal prided himself on the sparsity and agility of his actions - but sometimes Will was required to touch Hannibal in an altogether intimate fashion, to tend to those incidental wounds. And in those instances he always thought of the cliff, of how they stood covered in each other's blood as well as the blood of their mutual foe, and it was so deep and dark it seemed fathomless.

Perhaps he thought the sea might offer the same comfort. _It goes on and on, just as we do._

Sometimes he thought he might purposely stick himself, as tribute to all the blood they had shed together.

_Grind me, make of me a fitting tincture for which to stain your skin._

Moonlight upon blood, influence upon empathy. Coagulation.

The hunter, home, no hounds to bay at his heels, but still...home. Seeking warmth and shelter.

Hannibal flinched, though his expression did not change, his eyes closed and he turned his head.

" _Tsch_ ," Will murmured. "I'm being as careful as I can."

"You have absorbed my lessons wonderfully," Hannibal said, attempting to keep the pain from his voice.

A piece of buckshot clanked into a mixing bowl. "Just the one?"

"I believe so, yes. A foolish weapon to use on such a fast-moving target."

"In the dark, there's no telling where the strike may come from." Will felt irascible as he stitched the wound, attempting to ensure the closure was neatly joined, although the buckshot had penetrated the scar tissue from Verger's brand so it hardly mattered.

"The forces which blind us have many aspects."

In the blaze of the lamp and the scrutiny of the magnifying glass, Will saw inside Hannibal in a visceral way. He thought of the last time he made Hannibal flinch by pointing a gun at his head. He thought of when Hannibal took a bullet _out_ of him, took a bullet _for_ him, never would have used a gun _on_ him. Intimacy.

"Why am I enabling your foolishness? You should never go after prey bigger than yourself all alone."

"This wasn't foolish, merely unexpected."

"Your blood is not black in this light."

Hannibal's blood, Will's flesh. White King, Red Queen.

"Nor is it red, it only appears so."

Articulate to the last, was Hannibal Lecter. Will smirked, then gently squeezed his shoulder.

"Should you doubt my love, such as it is, I'd say pulling buckshot out of your ass is proof enough."

"I never doubted your capacity for love."

"Only that it would be directed at the proper recipient?"

"Only that you might understand _why_."

Will ran his hands along Hannibal's back...the man was utterly vulnerable in this moment, understanding that perhaps the number of people who had witnessed Hannibal in vulnerable circumstances was very small indeed. "Did you return empty-handed?"

"Would you think any less of me if I did?"

"I imagine there's any number of people you did not succeed in killing."

" _More_ than you can imagine, I should think."

"Color me disappointed."

"And color me grateful. They are the same shade."

Will bandaged the wound and helped Hannibal rise to his feet. He couldn't imagine how the other actually made it back to the house. Hannibal put an arm around Will's waist, leaning against him, his breathing slightly labored.

"I hope you didn't leave a trail of blood."

"In this city blood is not an unnatural emulsion."

"You don't need to get yourself shot to have me touch you."

Will removed the surgical gloves, flushed at Hannibal's breathing and proximity. He turned and embraced him carefully.

"Haven't we shed enough blood already?"

Hannibal rested his forehead against Will's, his smile broader than he might have allowed himself were he not injured.

"Some things can be repaired, and they are all the more precious for their salvage."

As he had once before, Will put his head on Hannibal's chest and wondered what was left to fall into.


End file.
